beautiful goodbye
by Annabella Petrova
Summary: He doesn't know why he visits her in her death bed. Maybe for that sense of humor he fell in love with? Or to see his former lover slash former best friend and companion slash enemy, die unwillingly.


**Title: **_Beautiful Goodbye_

**Summary: **He doesn't know why he visits her in her death bed. Maybe for that sense of humor he fell in love with? Or to see his former lover slash former best friend and companion slash enemy, die unwillingly.

**Characters: **Klaus Mikaelson, Katherine Pierce, Rebekah Mikaelson

**Pairing(s): **Klaus/Katherine, past Rebekah/Katherine, mentions of Klaroline.

**Genre:** Romance, Angst

**Rating**: T

**Timeline: **If Katherine actually died in the 500 Years of Solitude episode.

**Spoilers**: character death

**Words: **1856**  
**

**A/N: **My OC, Nikolina will be mentioned and featured in here, as well as Nadia.

* * *

He doesn't know why he visits her in her death bed. Maybe for that sense of humor he fell in love with? Or to see his former lover slash former best friend and companion slash enemy, die unwillingly.

But here he is, after one of the _best_ shags he's ever had, and she's watching him with a raised eyebrow.

"_I brought liquor._" He mutters, watching her with steady eyes and she cracks a grin.

"_I see that, darling,_" she purses her lips and leans back. _"__Close the door, and lock it, I don't need what's-her-face and her little bitches running down that door because you slept with vampire barbie...and don't give me that look-" _she starts hacking before sending him a sheepish smile. _"__I can smell her perfume on you._"

His heart aches at how calm she's being when she just coughed up blood all over the sheets and he sits down next to him when she pats the spot.

"_What_?" She spits out when he stares at her for a few minutes. "_Yes, I know I have bushy eyebrows and gray hair and dry lips and blah, blah, blah, but I'm human, Nik, so stop staring."_

"_Sh-shut up, Katerina_," she glares at him when he uses her original name, but he ignores it, and pops open the bottle of whiskey. "_How can you be so calm about this? You're dying. And you're not coming back."_

"_Thank you for reminding me,_" she huffs, as another coughing fit inched up her throat. She chokes it down and bites her lip before opening her mouth again. "_Really, as if I didn't know. I have like, an hour to live."_

He lets her grab the whiskey from his hands and watches as she drinks one-fourth of it. He _watches_ as she shrugs down the hysterics. And the pain.

He refuses to care.

(But he does anyways, because she was once his family's favorite friend and ally.)

"_Seriously, _**_Klaus_**_, stop staring!_" She's fuming now, and she gets up and runs her fingers through her hair when she almost collapses and he's by her side the second she feels dizzy.

"_Easy_," he almost calls her love again, but decides against it. "_What are you doing?_"

"_Dance with me_," she smiles brightly, and she looks like her former self again.

So they do in silence. With her hand on his bicep, and the other hand clasped in his and she flinches when he tightens his hold. His hand is on her hip, and her feet lightly on his because he's afraid she might fall.

"_If you had a heartbeat, I'd hear it racing, Nik," _she murmurs against his chest. "_Careful, you should be hating me._"

"_Don't ruin the moment with your whines and terrible sense of humor_," his chest rumbles when he chuckles and he feels her smile against it. "_Sweetheart_." He adds quietly at the end.

"_I find my terrible sense of humor attractive_," she hums. "_You should too, since you corrupted my innocent and adorable ways._"

"_Hilarious_," he whispers dryly.

She feels numb in his arms, and the darkness is so close before she swallows. And she pulls away and tells him to carry her to the toilet where she can throw up again.

The blood is disturbing. _No_, the _amount_ of blood is disturbing. And she shrugs and sighs and orders him to carry her back to the bed. And he does.

And her head's on his chest and a tear leaks from her eye. "_Honestly, this is worse than cancer. At least that one might be curable."_

"_Don't make jokes after what just happened_," he tries not to get mad. He really does but with every word she speaks, the fury just builds.

(He's mad because there's no hope. He told Caroline he'd never come back, and he told himself that he would heal Katherine and bring her back to him. Where they could be together.)

"_Lighten up, big, bad alpha_," she snorts, before her hand is pressed against her mouth and she swallows back her blood. "_I should be happy in my death bed. Because no one else gets to see me like this. I told Nadia my goodbyes over the phone, and Nikolina is outside of this terrible household."_

"_This isn't the time for jokes!_" He growls. "_Katerina, __mila moya,_" she understands of course, it's her native tongue. _My darling_. "_Hush, and enjoy the silence_."

The silence bores her the first five minutes, and then she starts to drift off into the darkness. And she speaks, voice hoarse. "_Join me_."

_So he closes his eyes and she's in a palace. They're staring at two young girls who are playing with amulets and herbs, and a witch servant chuckles and grabs it before Nadia puts it into Nikolina's mouth. _

"_This is your idea of a fantasy?_" He murmurs. And she nods, so he makes it worthwhile.

"_Nikolina is six, and Nadia's eight_," she informs him and smiles tightly.

_And Klaus is dressed up in his clothes that fits the century, and he grabs Katerina and smiles when he feels her pulse as he puts his lips to her neck. _

"_How was the hunt_?" _She mocks. _

"_Wonderful, how was dinner without me?_" _He plays along._

"_Terrible, I missed you too much," she grins and leans against him as they watch their daughters. _

"_I missed you too, love_," _he sighs, and they're ripped from her fantasy world when Katherine starts coughing again_.

"_I can't do this,_" She tells him. "_It hurts too much_." They both know she's not talking about the pain of dying, but of the manipulated dream never being reality.

"_I know, love_," he smooths her curly, gray hair with one hand.

Again, it's silent. She's curled up against him, fragile and weak, and she hates it. She hates him. She hates Damon. She hates Stefan. She hates Elena. But most of all she hates herself for letting her parents give Nadia away, for Nadia to give birth, and then her descendants give birth all the way to Elena Gilbert who shoved that goddamn cure – which, she notes to Rebekah, looks like a fucking tampon – down her throat.

She reaches her hand towards the nightstand and grabs the bottle of liquor and pours it in her mouth and she savors the burning alcohol because there's most likely not gonna be one in hell. Or purgatory slash the other side.

"_You're right," _she notes, frowning. "_I shouldn't be happy. I should be sad and angry and I am, but the whole happy thing is slipping and it was my only tug at humanity so I'm going to let myself go._"

He raises an eyebrow and her words sink in. "_Don't you dare_."

"_I can't live in a world like this," _she tells him. "_The other side is better than being here, full of sickening love triangles and doppelgangers who gets on my nerves more than you."_

He knows she's joking, but he doesn't care.

(Because she's dying and he's filled with endless pits of worry and sadness and hopelessness.)

"I_'m not saying I want to die, but I can't defy fate again," _she swallows but this time, the blood escapes. "_But I know that's it's my time. So I will tell you one thing, and I'll ask you another. I love you, Niklaus Mikaelson, always have, always will. You drove me to the point of insanity and I lack trust in everyone but myself because of that, and I will hate you for that, but I love you anyways. That's why I'm asking you this_."

He's breathless. Utterly breathless at her next words.

"_Will you lie to me? Will you tell me you're in love with me, and that you won't try to escape your time to surrender to death_?" She murmurs when her eyelids begin to droop towards the endless forests of hell. "_Promise me before I go_."

"_I love you," _he doesn't lie when he says that. "_You know that_, _and I swear to you, that my words are true when I tell you that you've held my heart the moment I laid my eyes on you, kitten, when you're on the other side, don't you dare forget that. And..._" He spits out the lies in the next sentence. "_I won't escape from the grasp of death."_

"_Thank you_," She mutters, and he feels wetness on his shirt, and then her heartbeat is dropping. And his eyes are watery, and he presses a chaste kiss to her lips

"_You've had my heart the moment I set my my eyes on you_," he repeats before her pulse completely stops.

And his heart aches. But he toughens up, and carries her bridal-style downstairs, only to watch Elena and her pack of morons drinking in happiness, and he smirks, before telling Nadia to put Katherine into the car. And he watches them walk out the front door before he's in front of Bonnie with his hand around her neck.

"_You and your group of imbeciles better run, sweetheart,"_ he chuckles darkly. "_Because the next time I see you, you'll be dead. I'll have Elijah and Rebekah keeping an eye on you, and you will be terrified because we all know how temperamental us Originals can be."_

"_You don't scare us, Klaus_," Damon scoffs, and then the blonde Original appears in record time.

"_Oh, but I should_," She grins. And she sighs when the older Salvatore has an unimpressed look on his face, and shoots a random substance she stole from Wes' laboratory. "_Damon, Damon, Damon, I honestly didn't know what to do with this until now_."

She presses it into his wrist and he hisses.

The youngest Original laughs mockingly, before spinning around to the others. "_I stole tons of these things. So, when I count to let's say, five, I'm going to chase you out the door. Am I clear enough for those ant sized brains of yours?"_

She starts counting immediately, and Caroline sends both a dirty glare, before running out with Stefan, and Tyler, and everyone else. And Klaus grabs the leftover substance in the needle and it enters into her veins.

And the Originals are back in the car, with Nadia and Katherine's dead body and Rebekah chokes when she sees the doppelganger.

"_Genevieve said that if the anchor dies, the other side comes back_," she tries to say. But Klaus just shuts her up, and they drive back to New Orleans.

He ignores the pain in his chest.

He ignores the memories that tries to rush back into his head.

He ignores the thought of the last smile he sent him.

He ignores everything.

And instead just hums the small tune he heard Katerina humming in the kitchens at night back in 1492.

"_At least she had a beautiful goodbye_," he doesn't say that from his arrogant ego, but from his experience with her.

_A beautiful goodbye_.


End file.
